149 replies to this topic

[brummieapril]

ryanliamg - Sorry, I've only just noticed your question. I'm not sure but I think it was "Warpaint" and the track that followed. I also watched them at Glasto and again noticed the backing tape. (Not that it matters much, I just hadn't realised. Muse also use a backing tape sometimes). Glasto didn't make me change my mind about Warpaint live - I thought the vocals and both guitars were pretty weak actually, especially Emily's vocals which I have always enjoyed on the studio recordings. (Anna Calvi on the other hand.......WOW!!). Stella and Jenny(? the bass player) impress me a lot though.

Blank - I also SAW them at the HMV Institute, Birmingham.

[MomentsHaveYou]

As far as I've noticed, Warpaint use a (backing) tape only for the song 'Bees' which begins with an electronic drum beat. It lasts just for the first verse while Stella gradually brings in the acoustic drums and then disappears. It's there just to be faithful to the record which also uses both electronic and acoustic drums. I think it works very effectively live and short of hiring an extra drummer for one song to play electronic pads, I don't see any other solution. The use of a tape part certainly isn't down to bad musicianship.

I do agree with you about Glastonbury. The vocals were noticeably weaker than on other performances I've seen. Maybe this is down to sustained touring - look at their myspace page for tour dates, they hardly take a day off. I know that's no excuse though. All I'll say is that when I saw them in Sheffield (which I think was a week or so after the Brum show) I was very happy and impressed. And yes, their rhythm section is very solid. Jenny is probably my favourite bassist at the moment.

[Blank]

yeah i saw the glasto thing on tv and was let down.. having said that i saw them on jools holland a few days before i saw them in bristol and they were so lacklustre i almost decided not to go to the bristol gig altogether.. but then at bristol i thought they were superb. maybe it's a voodoo thing which they cant fully pull off when televised

[LouisGilbrook]

Nah, I think you just need to actually be there experiencing it directly. Live performances seen on TV are never anywhere near as powerful as the same performance seen upfront.



I saw these guys last week and they blew me away!

[orangevarld]

Here is a 51 minute live from Rock Werchter (Belgium) : http://www.skynet.be.../2/37/1003/4598

But I'm not sure it is available if you're not in Belgium. (If not and if you really want, I can try to find a way to save the video).

[Iva]

When I was somewhat biased, I thought there was a lot of pseudo-creativity, a so-and-so art statement involved, recycling known concepts and even exact sentences said by other people. A pastiche of pastiches, literally.

I'm not biased anymore, I re-visited them and I still think all of the above. This is one of the rare bands I cannot relate to at all, I don't think their music will ever sound like something other than a combo of Lush and Cocteau Twins gone all stoned.

[MomentsHaveYou]

Why were you biased before Iva? And why aren't you now?

Every band - and every person in the world - is a big combination of all their knowledge, experience and influences. The more influences a band incorporates into its sound, the more original it seems. So, do you think that the problem with Warpaint is that they don't have a wide enough range of concepts to draw from?

For me, it isn't a problem that my ear is constantly coming across sounds similar to Cocteau Twins or The Cure. I'm just glad that somebody contemporary has embraced the atmosphere of bands who either don't exist anymore or don't resemble themselves anymore. The same feeling occurs when I hear in John Frusciante's work vocal inflections similar to Cat Stevens or idiosyncratic rhythms like those of Syd Barrett.

Interested to hear your thoughts.

[Nimi]

‎"Every band - and every person in the world - is a big combination of all their knowledge, experience and ‎influences. The more influences a band incorporates into its sound, the more original it seems." ‎

I can’t agree more. I listen to a lot of music and pretty much constantly I am bombarded with ‎associations of other bands, of other melodies, of other musical patterns and so on. The similarities don’t ‎necessarily exist in the fabric of music itself, but rather in the associative fabric of my own thinking. The ‎more you have listened to music, the more you inevitably will hear similarities.

A particular song or the sound of a band ‎isn’t necessarily (and I think very often it isn’t) a conscious attempt to recreate some sound of another ‎band or era or a song or whatever. Even when I myself TRY to play something, the result is more like a mosaic of ‎musical patterns I’ve heard and liked - some of the patterns have existed only in my own head, but the majority of them I have heard in ‎other songs, whether I am aware of it or not. But still my little unskilled improvisation isn’t a sum of ‎what I glued together but something totally new. I pick up only certain things, I put them in my context and I take a new approach to them ‎‎(...have to because of my very limited skills ). So the result in that ‎way is ultimately a reflection of me and my poor skills, even if the elements of that reflection didn’t purely come only from ‎me - except the unskilledness, of course. Music is a bordered universe, but within the ‎borders it is infinite.
‎
I do understand some of what I think lies behind what Iva said, though not in regard to Warpaint, but ‎generally. I wouldn’t necessarily use a word pseudo-creativity (for the reasons I explained above), but there definitely are some trendy “glued ‎on top” elements in music and has always been. ‎But nonetheless many artists have enriched the soil even if it wasn't their goal... ‎

[el_duderino]

They are considered as 'indie' and 'experimental', but they are so different from all this countless synthetic bands of this type i've heard. so kind and beautiful. i just love them

[Iva]

MomentsHaveYou, on 19 July 2011 - 06:29 PM, said:

So, do you think that the problem with Warpaint is that they don't have a wide enough range of concepts to draw from?

Basically, yes.